Landscape maintenance nightmare!

It's easy to plant seeds indoors in the winter and dream of the glorious yard you'll have come summer.  I thought it time to give an update of my "profession" and what happened to all those seeds.  Well, most of them did OK.  Several annuals I should've started a month sooner and some I should've started a month later.  They all evened out eventually and the window boxes looked good for about 3 weeks, before it got hot, then the petunias took off and the snap dragons died.  Now it's nothing but purple.  Oh well, better luck next season.

Yes!

Now onto the garden:  lettuce is a cool season crop.  Period!  That stuff tasted so good and we had salad with dinner for weeks.  I didn't bother to thin the heads (always read the package and thin!) and we had lettuce coming out of our ears.  I couldn't keep up with it and it got stalky and bitter.  Maybe I'll replant in August.

Tomatoes, chilies, basil, carrots, peas, bell peppers, bush beans, and squash are all doing good.  Once again I planted a little too close.  Oops!  

I got Anna and her friend, Levi, to pose.  Those toddlers are so cute!

Funny story with the basil... it started going to seed so I harvested a lot of it, bought a pound of walnut pieces at winco, and started mass producing pesto.  It was so yummy!  I had it on crackers, I had it on pasta, and what was left I froze in small portions.  Then, later that evening and long into the night, Dallin was having trouble nursing. He would drink a little, then just give up!  It was so bizarre.  Then it clicked... garlic!  Sure, in regular food with some cooked garlic, how could he tell?  But I ate raw garlic... a LOT of raw garlic!  I tested this theory by giving him a bottle from a couple days ago.  He gulped it down.  Well what do ya know?!  It took about 24 hours for him to nurse again.  Lesson learned.  It's true what they say, to an extent.  I'd better ration the pesto from now on, and drink a lot of water.

  

Let's get out of the heat!

It's fun getting caught up on all the fun things we've done so far this summer.  Now that it's more than half way over, and "junior" is better at holding his head up, it's time to get outside!

Almost  a month ago, there was this nasty heat wave.  I'm glad we don't live in Salt Lake, but Midway was equally unbearable, especially living in a house with no central air conditioning.  We think ahead and we can usually get our house to stay comfortable.  One Saturday, we were tossing ideas of a fun thing to do.  Bevan suggested Salt Lake, but I was thinking "higher".  Mirror Lake!  I called the "gang at the cabin" (AKA mom and dad) and they totally offered to drive!  

It was so nice!!!  It was MAYBE 72 degrees?  Sure there were millions of other people that all had the same great idea, but we eventually found a parking spot and it's a big lake.  We planned to eat hot dogs and smores for dinner.  I figured Bevan could fish and the rest of us could walk around the lake while the charcoal did its thing.  The trail was almost too rough for the jogging stroller, but we made it.  Dallin got bit on the head by a mosquito and Anna fell in the stream, but I consider this outing a success!

Nice, cool, Mirror Lake!

Yes, that is a snowball!  Not what you'd expect to see!

Here's Bevan, doing his thing!

Anna is always copying Bevan.  She does it very well!

Wind, hair in the face, and a sticky marshmallow made for a great combination!

I think it's amazing she only fell in once, and it was right before we left.  Call me insensitive for taking this picture... I thought it was funny!

The subsequent ride home...

Summer of Running Bevan

I never knew how hard it was to have multiple kids.  The kids themselves aren't hard... it's getting other things done that's hard!  I now look forward to cleaning the bathrooms or vacuuming because I feel like I'm accomplishing something.  Dallin is growing like crazy and already busting out of his 0-3 month onsies.  Anna is soaking in her toddler freedom and trying extra hard to drive me crazy.  She loves her little brother and still piles blankets on him or tries to get his binky to stay in his mouth.

We had our first sleepover in American Fork at Beverly and Lloyd's house.  Bevan's race ended a block away, at the high school, so it was a no-brainer to set up camp there.  I underestimated how easy it would be to find him afterwards.  It took 45 minutes!  There were thousands of people!  He had an amazing time and came in before I thought he would.  Now he has the running bug for the season and wants to sign up for all these different races.  I don't mind him spending the time to train... as long he takes Anna with him!